White House

Obama Reveals New Details on Bin Laden Raid

President Obama returns a salute as he steps off the Marine One helicopter upon his arrival on the South Lawn of the White House on Wednesday. Obama was returning from an unannounced trip to Afghanistan.(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

President Obama recalls that he lost sleep and did “some praying” the night before approving the raid that killed Osama bin Laden on what he now looks back on as “the most important single day” of his presidency. He said he also avoided doing “a high five” when he saw the first photos of the dead bin Laden, explaining that “regardless of who it is, you always have to be sober about death.”

The disclosures come in an interview with Brian Williams of NBC for an edition of Rock Center devoted to the most comprehensive and detailed look at the White House decision-making that led to the apprehension of the al-Qaida leader. The interview was conducted before the president’s surprise trip to Afghanistan this week.

The show aired Wednesday night on NBC, with detailed quotes released earlier by the network. It included new details about that decision from the president and the top members of his national security team, including Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, then-CIA Director Leon Panetta, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mike Mullen, National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, and Adm. William McRaven, then commander of Joint Special Operations.

In his interview with Williams -- conducted in the White House Situation Room where so much of the drama played out one year ago -- the president stressed that he understood the risks of the decision, which many of his team recommended against. And he emphasized how critical it was at the time to keep the deliberations secret, even refusing to share anything with first lady Michelle Obama while Clinton kept the matter away from her husband, the former president.

“This had to be such a close-held operation,” Obama said. “There were only a handful of staff in the White House who knew about this.” He added, “Even a breath of this in the press could have chased bin Laden away. We didn't know at that point whether there might be underground tunnels coming out of that compound that would allow him to escape.” He also acknowledged that it was by no means certain that bin Laden was in the compound in Pakistan. “Ultimately, it was a 50/50 proposition as to whether this was actually bin Laden.”

But while he lacked full confidence in the intelligence, he said he had no doubts about the ability of the SEAL team that had been rehearsing the raid. “I did choose the risk,” he said. “The reason I was willing to make that decision of sending in our SEALs to try to capture or kill bin Laden rather than to take some other options was ultimately because I had 100 percent faith in the Navy SEALs themselves.”

To make sure the team was ready, Adm. Mullen attended a dress rehearsal in the Nevada desert, NBC reported, meeting all the members of the team who had been practicing even though they had not been told who their target was. “I got to look each of them in the eye. They showed me in their execution of rehearsal and also in that steely-eyed glare that they give you that they were ready to go,” Mullen said.

A week after the dress rehearsal, the White House was told that it would be a moonless night in Pakistan with clear skies, just the conditions they wanted for the raid. With that news, the team met in the Situation Room on Thursday, April 28, 2011, so the president could get their final advice. As Biden told Williams, “There was no consensus. The president on the last day got us all down in the Situation Room and he said, ‘OK, it’s basically a roll call.” The advice was conflicting. Panetta and Clinton supported a raid with Special Forces. Biden wanted more proof that bin Laden was in the compound. Then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates wanted an airstrike with no use of ground forces.

But despite the conflicting advice, Obama said, “It was never contentious because I think everybody understood both the pros and cons of the action. People who were advocating action understood that if this did not work, if we proved to be wrong, there would be severe geopolitical consequences and obviously most importantly, we might be putting our brave Navy SEALs in danger.” Hearing the advice, the president promised a decision Friday morning.

He remembers it as a rough night, telling Williams, “Well, there is no doubt that you don't sleep as much that evening as you do on a normal night. I stayed up late and I woke up early.” But he was comfortable with the “go” decision he gave the next morning in the Diplomatic Room of the White House. “You have some serenity in knowing that you've made the best possible decision that you can and, you know, in that situation you just, you do some praying,” he said.

With the order given, all the members of the team were determined to maintain normal schedules that betrayed nothing of the critical operation they had launched. That included attendance at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner that Saturday night and a quick nine holes of golf for the president. But he acknowledged his mind was elsewhere -- particularly when Seth Meyers, the comedian at the dinner, made a joke about bin Laden. Obama laughed. But, he told Williams, “That was a little bit of acting going on there because my mind was elsewhere.”